Investigation of Fatigue Crack Propagation in Spot-Welded Joints Based on Fracture Mechanics Approach

In this paper, fatigue crack propagation life of resistance spot welds in tensile-shear specimens is investigated based on the calculation of stress intensity factors and J-integral using three-dimensional finite element method. For comparison, experimental works on 5083-O aluminum alloy spot-welded joints have been carried out to verify the numerical predictions of fatigue crack propagation of welded joints. A lot of analyses have been performed to obtain stress intensity factors and J-integral in tensile-shear specimens of spot-welded joints by using commercial software ANSYS. These gathered data have been formulated by using statistical software SPSS. The results of fatigue propagation life and predicted fatigue crack path revealed very good agreement with the experimental fatigue test data and photograph of cross-section of the fatigued spot-weld specimens.